Tag Archives: silence

In beginning of the summer, he told her he would be flying in. She waited for a clarification, in silence.

The flurry of his messages resumed in a few days: the tiny little jabs that, with his craftiness and her gullibility in tow, could easily be reinterpreted as tiny strokes of her ego; and if she really, really wanted to feel needed and missed — she could be pleased. He was visiting his mother. She said hello, said that she was sorry about how things had turned out. She’d always “liked her”. He spoke about how sick and tired of the North-East he had grown. (They’d moved there together years ago, on the basis of her curiosity alone, pretty much. Being young in New York sounded perfect, at the time.) And wouldn’t it be nice to raise a family out here, instead? She would’ve made a wonderful mother.

On that, she came out of her silence: “What do you want, Mike?!” she texted. (She had always avoided abbreviations in her messages; but with him, she also insisted on being brutally precise with her punctuation.)

But her irritation went right over his head: “dunno hang out?” he wrote back.

It had to be a bliss to not see life’s gray areas at all, and to trample over other people’s precious boundaries with this much oblivion. Or could he be simply manipulative? Perhaps, he enjoyed watching her lose her cool, for his sake. But the casualty with which he treated their break-up she found plainly and increasingly offensive: He had been acting as if nothing terrible had happened at all and as if they could remain friends, on the other side. Didn’t he know long it took for her to achieve the lightness of the forgiven past?

They took a few days off from talking. She began sleeping a lot.

When he finally appeared, she wished her mind had tricked her into not recognizing him. She wished he had changed. But no: A pair of long shorts ending at his half shins; a one inch buzz cut of his coarse, tight curls, which he had worn the same way for years; and a backpack. And a sizable backpack at that! (The day they met back in college, she was stumbling across the campus from the bus stop. Having left her glasses at home, she was walking by memory. He was leaving his Calculus class, in shorts and — yes! — with a backpack. A sizable backpack!)

Now, he was walking on the opposite side of the street. He seemed to have noticed her from ways away. Eventually, she noticed him too: that gait, that tilt of the head. She felt zero sentimentality. Once they made eye contact, he didn’t smile. Neither did she.

“Oh, no! Your hair!” he said right off the bat. He now stood in front of her, his lower lip chapped from the wind. “What happened to your hair?”

She had cut it all off, in the heat of the new city; and she’d been keeping it that way, since they’d last seen each other.

“And where are you off to?” she responded, immediately defensive. “Camping in the canyons?”

It was just like she remembered the very end of them: terse non-sequiturs and impatient physical contact. Now, they had both grown older, but not kinder.

Considering to take an offense, he looked at her with his shiny eyes, then shrugged. They exchanged a stiff hug. (How long does it take for the muscle memory of lovers to fade?) She braised the air near his cheek with a polite kiss, but their skin never touched. He pulled away, held her arms for a moment, looking into her eyes. Forcing it. Then, after studying her boyish hairline again, he shook his head. At least, he was smiling this time.

“Can I get you a drink?” he sized up the empty plastic cup on her end of the patio table, with its walls murky from a blend of coffee and milk.

“I don’t know: Can you?” She narrowed her eyes. She was beginning to feel tired and bitchy again. A tension headache was squeezing her temples. She sat back down. His backpack now took up the chair across from her. She began to study pedestrians, particularly the ones with dogs. When the dogs were left waiting outside, tied down to immoveable objects, she wondered how this much love could ever be forsaken. How could love survive this much waiting?

When he returned, with two identical iced drinks, he plopped the backpack down onto the dirt patch, himself — into the chair. Brazen, she thought. Not even an apology for having her wait for him for nearly half an hour.

“So. How the hell are you?” he said, while twirling the cubes of ice inside his coffee with a straw. They clunked against each other, dully.

“Well.”

He nodded: “Yeah. I’d say.” She watched him take a good stretch in his metal chair and yawn.

“You?” she said.

“Bueno!” he said and grinned at her with that boyish bravado that he’d nearly lost at the end of their marriage. His arms hung stretched behind his head. “It’s good to be back, I’ll tell you that much,” he said.

She felt her headache tighten. She needed fresh air, or rather moving air, against her face. She wanted to be crying under the rain. She wished to be in the water.

So, she stood up, groped the chair for her purse and picked up her drink. “Mind if we walk to the beach?” she said.

His eyes, despite the panicked confusion (was it something he said?), began to shine with a curiosity. “Yeah. Sure,” he responded. “That would be awesome!”

She shook her head. He was pushing now.

Not wanting to go through the store filled with other people, exhausted by the sun, she began to search for the gate of the patio. She needed to be near the water, to hear it, and to imagine all that distance stretching ahead of her and all the places on the other side.

The one that had preceded Nina suffered from a permanent tension of his vocal cords. He had picked me up at the Santa Monica Library — a house of glass and metal, and the place of rest for many a homeless in the City where no one could ever find a home. Not really. Sure, one had a house, or a place. A joint. A roommate situation. But to be at home — one had to be willing to belong.

“Hmm. That’s an interesting pullover you’re wearing,” said the young creature, at the Library, smug with studied confidence. Not natural at all.

I granted him a single glance-over: An overachiever, to a tee. Something about him lacked the swagger of those whose choices and whims were endorsed by family’s name or a bank account (which ever one had more clout). Yes, still: He tried. Immediately, I knew: He, who poured this much attention into his subject — who reached too far and tried too hard, straining beyond the plasticity of his compassion (which would already be magnificently excessive), he who choked with forced praise — would rarely be comfortable in silence. Not in the mood for busy talk, I changed the subject whilst looking for an exit:

“What are you reading, mate?” I threw over my shoulder. The echo played a round of ping-pong with my sounds between the glass walls of the reading room. Ate, ate, ate. To which, a studying nerd deflated his lungs, somewhere in the corner:

“SHHHHHH!”

Neither looking back at the distressed prisoner of knowledge nor wanting to look ahead at this new lingering aggressor against silence, I focused on the hardbound books with which he had been shielding himself, with brown, hairless arms. The fading edges of their cloth binding would smell of mold at the spine, and then of dehydration from the air and sun; overexposure to the oil of human fingers and the salt of readers’ tears, surprised to have their empathy awoken by someone’s words: Still alive, that thing? Because the heart was usually the last one to give up. And then, the lungs: SHHHHHH.

The aged tomes in the man-child’s arms promised to titillate my ear more than his words. Words, words.

“What am I reading?! Oh. Um. Nothing…” (Oh, c’mon! The nerd in the corner was turning red, by now, from the justified resentment at being invisible to us, as he had been his whole life.) “Well. Oscar Wilde and Evelyn Waugh, actually.” The man-child finally spat out, then hesitated, gave this cords another straining pull: “I know! Not butch enough — for a straight male!” He nearly choked there! Words, words, word.

Oh. One of those: Simultaneously eager and tormented! The one to flaunt his politics out loud, just so that the others didn’t get the wrong idea. Because whatever happened in beds he visited (even if out of the other lover’s loneliness or boredom) would be the reason for his later torment. The guilt, the loathing. The other obstacles to self-esteem. And he would wear them like a frilly scarf from Urban Outfitters, meant to accent things — to draw attention, and perhaps make him more “interesting” — but not to serve the very original function. The it-ness of the thing was lost.

With me, the man-child, worked his words (words, words) to become liked enough. And after one eve of heavy breathing and pulsating blood flow, perhaps, he would be asked to stay. I questioned, though, if he knew exactly what he wanted: sex — or its statistic? The mere happening of it? Sex was a fact of his hormonal balance; and if he could help ignore it, he would move out of his body entirely and occupy his head. But for right now, the boy still had to get some, however accidentally.

The love you take — is equal…

He took, he claimed. And if he didn’t, he would storm out of sentences with scorn of having to sublimate his desires, yet again. Alas, the world was so unfair.

“But you!” Against the walls, he kept thumping the words like racket balls. The poor boy was trying! “You! — must be so erudite!”

“SHHHHHH!”

“Or really?” I hissed, considering the possibility of the nerd’s heart attack for which I was not willing to bear the responsibility. At least, not on a Monday night. “Is it the pullover?” I asked and pushed him out of the way. Over, over, over.

The man-child lingered, then began to laugh with that obnoxious howl meant to draw attention. Again, too much. Too hard. So insincere! Petrified! SHHH! SHHHHHH…

“He sounds messy!” diagnosed Taisha, while she herself was negotiating the rush hour traffic. It was always rush hour, somewhere, in this City. Her windows rolled down — I could hear the screech of others’ breaks in the lazy heat of another smoggy afternoon. If one survived the mind-numbing dissatisfaction at having to just sit there — while getting nowhere and watching life slip out thorough the vents of fans — half of LA would give up on the idea of stepping out again, that night.

“I think I’m coming down with something.”

“…It’s food poisoning, I think.”

Like nowhere else, here, people were prone to canceling plans. To giving-up.

“I’m waiting for the cable guy. It sucks!”

“My cat is sick.”

Each night, the people landed in their private spaces, shared with other people or their own delusions. They heated up some frozen options from Trader Joe’s and locked their doors agains the City.

I listened to the life force of LA: Still plentiful, it breezed through all four open windows of Taisha’s Prius. This place — a forty four mile long conveyer belt that moved things along, living or inanimate (it moved lives along); and if one could not keep up, the weight of failure would remain under one’s breath. The City of Lost Angels. The City of Lost Hearts.

“Now listen! Don’t do ANYTHING! until I see you!” Taisha ordered me; and although my heart maintained its pace, it winced at little, subjected to her care. “Don’t sleep with him! You’re dangerously close to some stupid choices, right about now!” (She was referring to the draught of my sexuality. When I blew out the thirty candles of my birthday cake, the promiscuity that granted me some fame, was also put out, surprisingly and seemingly for good. Into that space, I started cramming wisdom.)

“I am one lucky bastard — to have you love me like you do,” I responded, singing my words halfway through the sentence.

Oh, how she fought it! My dear Tai! All business and busyness, the girl refused to slow down for sentimentality’s sake: “Oh, you, white people! Ya’ll get so mushy ‘round love. My people, back in Kenya…”

“Ah, jeez! Alright!” I interrupted, misty-eyed. “I’ll talk to you.”

Taisha would be talking, still, like “peas and carrots” in the mouths of actors. But I could hear her smile break through. Humanity still happened here, amidst perpetual exhaust and one’s exhausted dreams. Somewhere along the stretched-out, mellow land attacked by bottom-feeders and the self-diluted who knew not why exactly they made a run for here, but mostly headed West in a trajectory that had been paved by others — it happened. Some stayed, too tired or too broken of hearts. And they comprised my City.

“Everyone seems so shallow here!” the man-child (he would be from Connecticut, but of course!) was overlooking the crawling traffic, like a Hamlet in his soliloquy. And from the upstairs patio table we’d taken while splitting a bottle of ginger ale (for which I’d paid), he seemed to be in perfect lighting. The row of yellow street lights had suddenly come on above his head. The dispersed taillight red reflected on his face from the West-bound traffic. The boy was slowly sipping — on my drink.

“Big spender!” I could already hear the voice of my Kenyan Confucius. “RUN! Run while you can!”

“But YOU! You seem like you’re here by accident!” His terrorism by kindness did have one thing going for it, called lucky timing.

“I am so lonely,” I wanted to let out, right underneath the yellow light now holding conferences of moths and fruit flies. At a table nearby, a girl blogger clacked away on her snow-white Mac, while glancing at us from underneath her Bettie Page bangs. What does it feel like — to be written?

“What if I slept with him?” I thought. It’s better to have loved…

Except that: I had turned thirty. And I could no longer take for granted the ghosts of previous lovers that crowded a bedroom during a seemingly inconsequential act. A Greek Chorus of the Previously Departed. And then, the heart of one participant, at least, would wake up — with yearning or having to remember its wrong-doings or when the wrong was done to it — and things turned messy. So, sex was never simple; especially for this one, who now tipped the last drops of my ginger ale into his glass.

“You wanna drink?” Familiarity had started working on my sentences already, like cancer in my marrow. Still, IT — could have happened, still. IT would have started with a shared drink. “A beer, or something?” I tensed my body to get up.

“Nah, thanks. I’m in AA.”

I looked at him: His eyes began to droop like a basset hound’s: Just ask me — of my suffering. The frilly Urban Outfitters scarf picked up against the gust of wind. My chair scraped away from him — and from the table now mounted by issues of his angst. My entertained desire shriveled.

Yet still — I stayed!

When he and I made loops around the neighborhood, dumbfounding the drivers at each intersection with our pedestrian presence. Through windshields, I would find their eyes — like fish in an aquarium, unable to blink — and they calculated the time they had to make the light without plastering our bodies with their wheels. Preferably. The man-child let me lead the way. A winner!

And still — I stayed.

I stayed when I had climbed onto a stone fence, and now even to his height I waited for the lean-in. The boy hung back, decapitating his hands at his wrists by sticking them into his pant pockets. His words continued to pour out: His praise came up along my trachea, with bubbles of that shared ginger ale, which now tasted of rejected stomach acid.

But still. I stayed. I waited. Because sometimes, to those who wait — life grants, well, nothing. And nothing, sometimes, seemed to be the choice of greater courage.

“She never rains. The poor girl, She’s all cried out.”

Nina’s hair, unless right after the shower, shot out of her head in spirals of prayer. Of course, she hated it. A black woman’s hair: Don’t touch it, unless you’re done living altogether. The glory of it was slightly confused by auburn shades inherited from Nina’s Irish mother. And underneath that mane — sometimes set afire by the sun’s high zenith — and right below her smooth forehead, two eye, of furious green, devoured the words that she had been reading to me from headstones.

“Which one is that?” I asked and walked to her side of a burgundy granite, with jagged edges, still shiny like a mirror. It had to have been a pretty recent death.

She wrapped herself further into her own arms and chuckled, “No one, silly. I just said that. About this City.” Like an enamored shadow, I hung behind her. “This would be the perfect time for rain. Except that She — is all dried out, you see?” The furious green slid up my face. “But She — is really something, isn’t She?”

It was indeed refreshing, for a change, to be with a woman so free from posing. Of course, I’d witnessed moments of vanity on her before: When her pear-shaped backside lingered at the boudoir before she’d finally slip in between the covers and curve around me. And all the open spaces — she occupied by flooding.

I wondered if she knew the better angles of herself. Because I saw them all. When in an unlikely moment of worrying about my long-term memory’s lapse, I whipped out my phone and aimed its camera at Nina’s regal profile, she must’ve been aware that her beauty was beyond anything mundane. For I had studied many a pretty girls before, the ones with the self-esteem of those who have never been denied much. But Nina’s beauty wrote new rules, of something warm and living. It came from occupying her skin with no objections to its shape of color; from delicate sensibility and softness, like the wisp of a hair across a lover’s face. But there was also: strength. And heritage. And underneath my touch, she moved.

She always comes in here, right around this time (which probably says a lot about her, and the same — about me).

And when she appears — she is impossible not to notice.

You can tell a lot by the way a person enters through the door. Some come in with certainty, as if they own the joint. Some have indeed been here before: They call out to the sleepy cashiers or the slightly baffled manager, and the rest of us are meant to take notice of the commotion they’ve created. Others slip in quietly: They tread their ground with no presumption; and I would like to think they spend their days causing the least amount of damage, in the world.

Local young couples come in here, to play out yet another day in the perseverance of their love. It’s them against the harsh world — together. Them — against us! And I don’t blame them: Togetherness — is hard enough. So, I watch them seeking refuge in each other’s company, because they still haven’t lost their love’s ability to hear — to receive each other — completely. They still haven’t taken the privilege of their intimacy for granted. Lucky kids!

Other times, this is the place for friends: buds and girlfriends, best friends. And they vent to each other about the little injustices in their relationships and lives; and expect alliances from the people at the other end of the table.

But she always comes in here alone, right around the same time. It is her voice that I hear first: It sounds like baby-talk that comes from a child who’s having a hard time growing up. I’ve often heard that voice from children with newly born siblings. They aren’t ready to share their parents’ love yet, and they still cannot comprehend where their self-importance has gone. So, they regress, even if only in their voices. And that’s exactly how she sounds.

Her clothes are simple, most likely begotten from a thrift store: A pair of loose jeans of no particular label and a long-sleeved crew neck sweater of pastel color. She wears thick, beige socks around her perpetually swollen ankles and a pair of nursing shoes. It’s not that she appears poor, just not well-off. And for that, the rest of the joint finds her at fault.

Or maybe, it’s her face: Something is not right with it. Her brown skin is deeply lined, although there is an overall puffiness on her cheekbones, forehead and neck; and under her eyes. The distance between her ears and chin has collapsed due to her absent teeth; so, she protrudes the lower jaw and smacks her lips a lot. The eyes are bulging and big, striking in the lightness of their hazel color. They make you lower your own gaze when confronted with hers. They are fully present, no matter how far and how long her mind appears to have been gone, by now.

“Can I sit here?” she’ll say, in that baby voice, asking for a group of girlfriends to move their purses from the chairs at the table she prefers.

That table is the worst! It’s right by the door, in the outer row, with the draft hitting her from both the outside and the overhead vents. When sitting there, there is no way she wouldn’t get in the way of people, coming over for their refills of coffee and water; and I’ve seen a few act discombobulated by her positioning. But she is sitting right by the door, as if already apologizing for not fitting in here. And before we notice — she will be gone.

The girls always act rushed when they move their bags, and they get uncomfortably silent once she finally sits down.

“Can I have some ice for my drink?” she’ll ask the Mexican fry cook, from behind the glass counter.

It’ll take a few tries to notice her: She is tiny, plus, she’s got that baby voice on her. And sometimes, if the kid at the fry station is new, he cannot understand her while he studies her face with embarrassment.

And I suspect it is her face: We all get stuck on it a little. Something is not right — with her face.

She’ll then sit down quietly and eat her meal so methodically she betrays her lack of family and money. Only the people that have known poverty eat like that. And I wish to apologize to her — for all of that pain and injustice; and for the shunned reactions of others. They think if something isn’t right with her face — something must be not right with her.

But her only fault, really — is the lack of beauty. She is not exotic, as retired youth has a chance to become. Neither is she dignified from the excess of money to take care of herself. She is simple, plain and just a little strange.

She comes and leaves alone; and while completely alone, she starts and finishes her meal.

One of these days, I shall strike up a conversation with her (but only if she’s willing to let go of her loneliness), and we’ll share a meal. And we may even share a silence.

Because she always comes in here, right around this time, alone; which probably says a lot about her, and the same — about me.

Judging from what little profile I can see peaking out from behind her long hair, she could be quite lovely. The lips — puffy and full — are enviable: She’s got that Jolie-esque fold in her lower lip that promises that the size of it — is real. The tiniest tip of her nose right above reminds me of that one exotic berry that starts with an “L”.

Yes, she could be quite lovely; but ever since I’ve walked into this tiny joint, the woman, sitting at the corner table, hasn’t stopped speaking. She’s got her iPhone, plugged into the wall, resting on the table next to two empty coffee cups. Another device — a spinoff of the iPhone — is heavily protected with two plastic cases and a belt clip. She takes turns dialing numbers on both things, and texting on whichever device is not being held up to her ear.

Her language — is foreign, heavily nasal; which makes her voice quite high. And that pitch could be quite lovely if she didn’t sound like she was whining. Whenever she switches to the iPhone, she returns to English; and I wonder if the list of her griefs, in that other nasal language, is similar:

“That guy is an asshole.”

And: “I’ve got no fucking money!”

Oh, I get it, sweetheart: Life’s unfair and hard. But it’s 9:00 o’clock in the morning, and most of us haven’t even finished our coffee yet. You — have had two.

From where I study the menu written on an overhead blackboard, I shoot her a glance. Her hair is frizzy, unevenly straightened. She is wearing jeans with a puffy vest. On her feet, I see those thick-soled, oddly shaped shoes meant to shape a woman’s behind by replacing exercise.

She picks up her iPhone again: The topic of the asshole guy is recycled. Her volume could be quite normal; but the joint is tiny and she attracts attention of every human, still barely awake; including the mustached line cook who, upon my entry, asked me to try a sliver of bacon sizzling in his metal tongs.

“Breakfast, beauty?” he says and I imagine his previous life as a Navy chef.

I smile but then realize half of my face is buried in my heavy knit scarf. So, I lift my chin and smile again.

This morning could be lovely, still.

A pretty hippie couple is lingering at the register: He is beach-blond, she is petite and an exotic mix of something gorgeous. Whenever he speaks to her, he lifts up his arms and folds his hands behind his head: He is shy — she thrills him. His white terrycloth shirt rides up every time, and in the slender torso of this beautiful young man I can see the little boy stretching in his highchair, while waking slowly. Gently.

The sound of some old song comes on over the radio. It makes me think of a Christmas-themed lullaby and of slow mornings that are always lovely that time of year.

And this morning could be lovely — if only we could keep quiet and still for a while.

The radio switches to some dissonant jazz tune and the could-be-lovely girl, juggling her devices at the corner table, picks up her iPhone again and switches languages:

“That guy is such an asshole,” the petite creature ahead of me quotes discreetly.

I chuckle. I get the couple’s attention; but then realize half of my face is buried in my heavy knit scarf. So, I lift my chin and chuckle again.

“Are we playing Cowboys and Indians this morning?” the man at the register says to me when it’s my turn to order. I look up: He’s wrapped a cloth napkin around the bottom half of his face and smiles at me, with only his eyes.

I smile; then, realize that half of my face is invisible. So, I lift my chin — and smile.

“Where is your bathroom — or don’t you have one?!” the could-be-lovely creature interjects quite loudly, and with a single gesture of tongs from the mustached Navy chef, she storms off in that direction. We wait for the passing of her busy noises and the departure of her griefs through the front door.

And when she does depart, her table is taken over by an older couple with a beautiful blue-eyed boy under their care. He can’t be older than five, is barely awake and clutching a robot of military green. The robot is wrapped in a baby blanket.

They could easily be the boys’ grandparents, but they don’t dote or baby-talk. Instead, they are acutely aware, and they answer to his needs quietly.

At first, I brace myself: The boy could be quite lovely. But he could also be a complete riot: His physical beauty could fully justify his bratty habits. But he slides into the chair near mine, stretches the corner of his baby blanket on the edge of the table and rests his blond curls on it. The older woman sits next to him and buries her gentle hand in his hair.

The beautiful blue-eyed boy stretches, while slowly waking.

The couple grabs a newspaper from the counter: She reads the news, he skims through the Calendar section. They speak to each other, quietly; while the boy drifts in and out of sleep. When the food arrives, he shifts. The mother (she IS his mother after all, I figure out) begins helping him with his utensils.

The boy whimpers: He wants to do it himself. With a single gesture, the woman calms him — “Hush-hush, my gentle little man…” — and the family returns to their quiet morning routine.

Ah. This morning could be lovely, still. And it could be quiet. And I wonder for how long I can keep holding on, today, to this gentle start of it — and to this gentle pace.

You are still thinking of that person who has mishandled you, who has mistreated, misunderstood it all — someone who has committed a sad misstep. But, of course, you think of him! How could he?!

But time happens. It keeps on happening. That just can’t be helped.

And as the time happens, his misstep seems sadder and sadder. But it’s rarely tragic, really — if you look at it hard enough. It may be chaotic, self-serving, unfair. Foolish and hideous. Confusing. Unkind.

But in the end, it’s just sadder. Especially if you commit yourself — to forgiveness.

For a while, his face floats above your head like a helium filled balloon, tied to the shoulder strap of your luggage. And you lug it around: Because these — are your “things”, you see. And you feel like you’ve gotta keep holding onto them. You’ve gotta keep holding on! Because what would you be — if it weren’t for your “things”?

So, the balloon keeps following you, floating above — a strangely pretty thing: The head of a decapitated ghost. If you look at it closely enough — it’s quite beautiful, actually, in that post-fuck-up sort of a way. You can still see the beloved’s face. You remember the cause of your love. But there is also a tiredness there that can be confused for peace. And there are consequences that may result in grace, eventually — when the time allows.

You just gotta commit yourself to time.

You just gotta commit yourself — to forgiveness.

But you aren’t ready yet. Or so you say. So you keep lugging the luggage around, earning calluses on your shoulders:

“These are my ‘things’, you see!”

“Oh, yes! How could he?!” others respond.

At first, you are selective with the audience to your story. Perhaps, you’ll tell it to your shrink, or to your folks. When you do, there will be grief written on their faces.

Okay, maybe the shrink will remain stoic: She’s got too many of you’s — and many more are worse off than you. But your folks: They might humor you. They’ll feel badly. They’ll behold. They’ll even claim to pray, on your behalf. (You’re too busy to pray for yourself, with all that condemnation being flaunted at the balloon-face. But don’t worry: Your gods will forgive you for forsaking them (and for forsaking your better self), until you’re ready to commit yourself — to forgiveness.)

“How could he?!” your folks will say.

And it’ll feel good, for a while: all this attention to your story. To your “things”. So, you’ll start telling the story to your friends.

They are good people — your friends, aren’t they? They will leap to conclusions and advice. They’ll take your side, if their definition of friendship matches yours. But some will judge. Others will hold back. And some will even want to share their story, because to them, that’s how empathy works: It gives space — to their sadder, sadder stories that aren’t really tragic. Except, when you (or they) are in the midst of the story, tragedy is a lot more precise. It matches the weight of the “things”.

You may get annoyed at your friends. You may disagree. You may even demand more kindness. Or more time.

Because time — keeps on happening. That just can’t be helped.

And you wish, it would move at a slower pace, sometimes.

And, okay, you just may get a little bit more of it, if you keep retelling your story to enough new people.

“How could he?!” they’ll say.

And you’ll get off, for a bit. (Feel better yet?)

One day, though, you’ll catch yourself in the midst of sadness. You’ll be showing your “things”, the way you always do, waiting for the “How could he?!” to follow. Your habitual anticipation of likely reactions will suddenly feel tired. You — will be tired.

A thought will flash:

“I don’t know if I wanna keep lugging this ‘thing’ around, anymore…”

His face — still floating, hanging above your head like something that used to belong to your favorite ghost — will seem slightly deflated. Sadder — NOT tragic.

Still, you will keep lugging. For a bit more, you will. You still need more time.

You’ve started this thing, and the ripple waves of gossip and misinterpreted empathies will keep coming in, for a bit longer. But they won’t bring you any more catharsis. And as you keep retelling the story (which will now sound a lot more fragmented), you’ll notice your people lingering:

“Isn’t it time yet?” they’ll ask you with the corners of their saddened eyes.

“You think? You forgive because if you don’t — you are the only one you harm. Right?”

I put the book of Mexican recipes face down onto my chest. Think about. I can’t be flippant when speaking of forgiveness:

“Something like that.”

That still sounded flippant. I amend:

“I forgive because otherwise it’s too heavy. It becomes spite, or even hatred.”

I actually think I am allergic to both. This last time around, I wore a rash on my chin until it stopped mattering, I guess.

I continue:

“And I forgive because I am still looking for new stories. When there is no forgiveness, I just keep replaying the old one too much. Until I get sick of it. Until it stops mattering, I guess.”

Until I get sick of it. Is that what happens with me, eventually: I dig for reasons, I cross-examine for long enough to get sick of the whole story? Because most of the time, the reasons don’t become apparent. Not completely. There are glimpses, of course; and most of them are rooted in some sort of pleasure — or satisfaction at least — on the part of the other.

The people who wrong us seek something that they think they deserve. They deserve us: our goodness, our sex, our beauty.

And some would call that love.

“What would you call it?” he asks me. He is lying on his side, facing the wall, away from me. The wall is baby blue.

“I dunno,” I say, pick up the book with the Mexican recipes and start flipping through it again: I am done figuring it out! “I dunno! But I definitely don’t call it ‘love’!”

The pictures in the book are delicious. Delectable. I secretly daydream of my future bakery: It would be so good for my soul!

“Love ought to be selfless,” I resume. I guess I am not done figuring it out. “I love for the sake — for the benefit — of the other person, as much as I do for my own.”

“That’s not true!” he says and finally rolls over onto his back to look at me. “I’ve seen you love, love. You often love — despite yourself.”

I want to laugh but feel slightly defensive: “Well. That’s just what I do!”

I get a mighty hold of the book jacket and start skipping the section on meats: I don’t want to know!

He is waiting for the rustle of the flipping pages to stop. “That’s what you do alright. But that’s not good either. You can’t keep sacrificing yourself like that.”

I still want to laugh.

“At least, at the end, I needn’t be forgiven,” I say.

I’ve found some great comfort in that, before. Even pride. Because when I leave, I don’t take much with me. I don’t take away a former love’s dignity. I don’t destroy the self-esteem. And I only carry away the things that have always belonged to me.

So, no: I don’t take much with me. And I don’t take away much either. But the weight of trying to forgive — is quite heavy, and I choose to lug it with me for a while. Until it stops mattering, I guess.

I dig. I cross-examine. I recycle. I search for the reasons until I realize that the reasons may never become fully apparent. There are glimpses, of course. But the consolation they offer aren’t strong enough of a painkiller. So, I continue to dig, thinking that if only I find all the reasons — it will stop hurting completely.

“But how much of yourself do you leave behind?” He is now staring at the ceiling. It’s white.

I stop flipping the pages, put down the book face down onto my chest and start staring at his spot as well. (Are those fingerprints on the ceiling?)

I may leave. I may take the things that have always belonged to me. But when I keep the connection — just so that I can continue cross-examining, digging — I linger. And in lingering, I leave parts of me behind.

How do we forgive the people who have wronged us?

I am afraid that my previous “how” — is just a theory, and with time I’ve learned that it doesn’t really work. I never find the complete reasons: I only find reaffirmations of the others’ previous choice to wrong me. The original choice to deserve: my goodness, my sex, my beauty. My generosity. My love.

And then, there is this forgiveness:

“Time,” he says. “You give it time.” He is still staring at the ceiling.

“Kinda like putting it to rest? long before it’s ready?” I am studying his spot: Fingerprints.

If I put it to rest, the story won’t stop mattering. Instead, it will remain as a tale of Just Because. And I have to have enough patience — enough self-love — to leave it at that.

Because there are glimpses of reasons, of course; but not even the most powerful empathy can make me understand these reasons completely. So, I should just let them be theoretical. Otherwise, it’s too heavy. And I only harm myself.

And after enough time, the reasons stop mattering completely.

I let it be — I let them be — in time and silence.

And I let myself be light and kind, as someone who needn’t be forgiven.

What’s this nauseating feeling looming in the pit of my stomach? That time of the month? Or maybe I should just lay off the coffee.

Back in Manhattan, I used to live on that shit. Now, I limit myself to three cups a day. On a good day. Nights don’t count: Nights keep their own count.

Sometimes, I forget to eat, too — a habit of my student days that hasn’t dissipated despite the new habit, of my non-student days, for daily running whenever my anxiety strikes. Back in the student days, I could just call up a lover and get tangled up in that mess. Not now though. Now: I just run, for miles.

And, oh, I could run for miles, right now!

But first: Must have some coffee.

Or maybe I should lay off the coffee. I hear it invokes anxiety.

Anxiety. Ah, that. It looms in the pit of my stomach, and it’s sickening: this battle of mind over matter.

I lie down on the floor. I should meditate, I think; or count some fucking sheep. Whatever it takes to get rid of this anxiety thing, looming in the pit of my stomach.

And coffee: I should definitely lay off that shit.

There is some drilling happening somewhere in close proximity; and because it’s been hot enough this week to sleep with all the windows slid wide open (come on in, thieves and ghosts!), the sound has awoken me, long before I was ready to get up and do my thing again.

What IS my thing, by the way?

Well, it starts — with making coffee.

Which I do. I get up from the floor and stare at the drip.

“thinking, the courage it took to get out of bed each morning

to face the same things

over and over

was

enormous.”

Bukowski. That old, ugly dog was the bravest of them all, never whoring himself out to academia, yet always producing the words, despite being ridden with vices, not the least of each was the endless heartache of compassion. And he knew a thing or two about clocking-in every day, at some maddening day job for a number of decades, then over his unpublished papers, at night.

Because nights keep their own count. And days — are mostly spent with some nauseating anxiety looming in the pit of the stomach.

“and there is nothing

that will put a person

more in touch

with the realities

than

an 8 hour job.”

But he would do that, until the day job was no longer necessary — and the papers were finally published. And after that happened, did the nausea vamoose for good? Poof! Or did he continue drowning it in liquor, exhausting it on the tracks or in between the thighs of his lover-broads; then getting up for the grind all over again, in the morning?

I stare at the drip as if it’s going to give me some answers. It reminds me of sitting by the life-support machine and staring at a sack of some gooey, transparent liquid — but not transparent enough to give me some fucking answers.

The pot’s half full. I think I’m supposed to wait for the whole thing to finish, or it ruins it. It interrupts the process. Fuck it. I pour myself a cup — I interrupt — and take it back to the floor. I lie down.

Maybe I should count some fucking sheep, I think. Or get me some poetry. It has put me to sleep last night, with all the windows slid wide open. Because the fucking sheep refused to be counted, at night.

And because nights keep their own count.

I take a sip of coffee and close my eyes. Open them: The drilling has started up again. I haven’t even noticed the silence. I put down the pen, the Bukowski. Start listening to the drill.

It reminds me of my never made dental appointment for a check-up. A check-up? What the hell do I need a check-up for? Just to see how much damage life has done to my enamel — with all that coffee — the timid receptionist called Lisa quietly explains, in so many words. She is always kind, whimpering her messages into my answering machine like a cornered-in mouse.

Goodness. Thank goodness — for kindness.

I should meditate, I think, after all. I take a sip, close my eyes.

Whatever happened to that girl, I wonder, remembering a colleague gloriously succeeding somewhere in this town. I had known her for years by now, but haven’t seen her for half of those. We began to lose touch, two of my lovers ago, after a row of coffee dates were meant to be broken. Eventually, the colleague and I forgot whose turn it was to make plans for the next date, to choose the next coffee shop. It must be a self-protective thing with her, I realize. She is successful: It’s hard for her to relate.

Oh well, I think. I’ll just keep in touch by overhearing some good news, on her behalf; and keep drinking my coffee alone, outside of coffee shops.

But then, I bet she too gets up to the grind, every morning. She too must feel the looming nausea in the pit of her stomach until she forces herself to meditate.

Because after years and years of getting up to do my thing, I realize that it pretty much summons success.

Success is simply getting up again.

But then again, there must be more to it. Certainly, there must be more to life — than getting up.

I get up, take my coffee with me. The drilling has stopped. I stare outside through the windows slid wide open.

“I listen and the City of the Angels

listens: she’s had a hard row.”

I remember: I’ve got to start the work. Because isn’t it what I’ve gotten up for?

I pour myself another cup. I begin.

But what’s this nausea looming in the pit of my stomach?

“the impossibility of being human

all too human

this breathing

in and out

out and in

these punks

these cowards

these champions

these mad dogs of glory

moving this little bit of light toward

us

impossibly.”

I take another sip. I continue.

The nausea begins to vamoose, giving room to the acidity of my coffee, incorrectly brewed; interrupted.

I personally wear it like the lavender-colored pashmina of cashmere and silk that I keep in the backseat of my car, at all times. Sometimes, I loop it around my arm while walking. Too warm for it right now, I think; but then, you never know: I might need it later. Other times, I show up all wrapped in it, and I walk by my lover’s side peaceful, perfectly sufficient, but separate. It’s my second skin: within his reach — for whatever exploratory touch he may have the habit for — but then again, it’s a barrier. A nature’s boundary. It makes up — me. It contains me: My silence. And no matter the power of empathy, no matter the reach of compassion, there is no way I would give it up, for good.

There are times when I let my companions wrap themselves in the other side of my silence, but only if they have the capacity to share my step and to adopt my pace, for a while. Most of the time, it is best shared with those that have seen me grow up. Sure, many loves have seen me change, learn, transform (because once I make up my mind to be with them — I go all in). But only the selected few — the sacred handful — have kept tabs on me for years. Many such silent walks we have shared by now, all so specifically perfect because they haven’t demanded a description. And the accumulation of these shared silences — is what makes up our intimacy.

I watch some get unnerved by my comfortable tendency for silence; and when I tell them I was born as decidedly the only child my parents planned to have, they say:

“Oh, but of course! Your silence makes total sense!”

I prefer to refrain from saying:

“But what do you mean?!”

Instead, I let them cradle their opinions, projecting their discomfort and their sadly absurd need to be right. Because a “What do you mean?!” always leaves an aftertaste of despair in my mouth. (And I am never really too desperate to name everything by its title; even it that title seems to be most truthful in the moment but only turns out to be best deserved, in the end. So, I would rather stick to metaphors. Or, I would rather leave it — to silence; leave it — in the mood to dot-dot-dot.)

But it does mesmerize me to watch others, in their silence. Most of the time, they aren’t my beloveds, but utter strangers incapable of handling solitude at all. I study their fiddling away with their radios for the best-suited background track. They click away at the buttons of their phones — their mobilized egos that promise to grant them a life — for some distracting stories in which they can tangle themselves up; as I tangle myself up — in silence. So discombobulated they are with their aloneness, so unsettled by the sudden lack of diversions from the truth, they reach, they grapple, they grasp.

There are others, much lovelier in my eyes; and in their silence, they are still curious. Surely, they must be loved, by someone, I always assume. They must be waited for, by others, at home. But in the moment of their solitude, they seem to possess the talent for temporary surrender. They sit in silence with an open mind, a ready fascination; as if the most unexpected gives them the biggest thrill. And it does make me wonder if their esteem — this comfortable wearing of their skin — comes from being so loved; comes from being waited for.

Because having a home to come back to — gives them a firmer ground to stand on. Because homecoming is always a deserving point of reference.

And then, there are the very few that dwell in silence permanently. It may not be because they are best equipped to deal with life’s ambiguity. But in the acceptance of their solitude, I find a grace so powerful, so contagious, it makes me want to interrupt it and say:

“But how do you do that?”

And I used to think that such ability for being had to have come from a healthy life and a kind past; from parents that wait for their children at Christmas with their favorite meals, loving anecdotes, and with boardgames in front of going fireplaces; with their childhood bedrooms still intact and photographs lining up into chronologies of their lives on hallway walls.

But not until I myself have learned to wear my silence without any secret desire to surrender it have I realized that it also sometimes comes from having lost too much to want to hold onto it. Because it gets too heavy, with time: all that loss and all that seeming injustice. So, I have learned let go of it, so I would never bring it into my new loves (because how can a love not fail with all that baggage in tow?).

Instead, these days, I wrap myself in silence as if it were the lavender-colored pashmina of cashmere and silk that I keep in the backseat of my car — within my reach — at all times. And I walk — alone.

And if ever walking with another love wrapped in the other side of it, through the shared silence, I tell him:

It was a long night, kittens. But that’s a’right: I have another long — and mmm-magnificent — day ahead.

But I did greet this day for you already, bright ‘n’ early. I did that!

While most kittens were whirring quietly in their cots, I spent the first hours of the morn’ pontificating with a fellow gypsy and a stunning heart: on the nature of love, and art, and the world itself. All the way from the other coast he told me that the world was still magnificent (despite my recently lost love); and as he could see it from o’er there, it was waiting to be treaded on.

“And did you know,” he told me, “there aren’t many interferences along each path — but opportunities to learn?”

“Really?”

I was already drifting off, leaving my gravity behind: We, fly gypsies, often don’t need our feet. He brushed my forehead with his words of gentle and intimate knowledge of me; and then, he left to do his own treading. Bye-bye, baby. Bye-bye, boo. Mmm.

So, today: I’m packing up. Suddenly feeling like I’ve shed a few kilos off my back, I am in the mood to recoup and get ready to move again. There is a tribe of gypsies hollering out my name in their bard songs, on the coast of the other, tamer ocean. (Oh, how I adore them, for keeping my heart!) A few solitary ones are waiting for me under the scorching suns of Mexico, and India; and somewhere in a quirky town in Texas. And then: There is my father — the quietest of all, who has patiently waited in the other hemisphere, for the return of his prodigal child. (I’m on my way, P. I’m well on my way.) And when we meet, we shall sit around the pots of my slowly simmering, healing stews and reshuffle our stories as if they were cards of Solitaire.

Mmm, ‘tis the season — for reunions.

But while I’m gathering my belongings and courage today, I shall be treading quietly. Very, very quietly. The thoughts of today’s meditation are vague and ever-so-changing. They remind me of an abstract watercolor painting: At any moment, another stroke can change their entire gist. Another color can shift the mood. So, I’ll try not to speak much; ’cause I don’t want to fuck it up.

It doesn’t happen often — today’s Moment in Between — because generally of an impatient mindset, I never sit for long enough to let it pass. So intensely I insist on living my life that I rarely sit in silence. Instead, I continue moving, shrugging off the urge for prayer as something I could do in mid-step.

“I don’t have time for this!” I tell myself and others when confronted with a suggestion — or an ultimatum — to chill out. “I’ve got shit to do!”

That may be true, my darlings, but one’s ambition does not negate those privileged moments of silence and aloneness. To the contrary, if one decides to devote a life to a great empathy for humanity, aloneness — is mandatory. Because by its very definition, compassion is a recognition of one’s self in another. And how in the world am I going to recognize that self if I, myself, don’t know my self? (Sorry, kittens: I’m probably sounding a bit too So Cal for some o’ ya. I’ll be back to my East Coast Bitchy in no time.)

Last night, I heard a lovely actress with a delicious accent and painfully poignant heart eloquently speak of the common introverted nature of all artists:

“It’s that thing of having to inhabit… yourself,” she said, “whatever that is… And it can often be quite uncomfortable.” (Ah, Cate: Ever so magnanimous you are! You give us, humans, way too much credit.)

So before I bounce again — toward the other coasts and countries, and loves — I’m just gonna sit a lil’. Alone. Quiet. Mmm-meditate.

I look out of my window: If only I’d see him, I think, I can forgive his unknowing act. But: Not a visible soul in sight. I study the yard below and the baby-blue guest house whose single staircase is always decorated with drying canvases. A woman in a headscarf quietly steps up to its wide window, while wiping her hands on the bottom of her apron. Like me, she’s cross-examining the street for the source of the disturbance. Apparently, she too — is asking for silence.

“Oh,” I think. “So, you’re the one creating all this beauty,” Despite heaving treaded this side of the world for over three years now, I’ve never met her before, my kittens, only her art.

She looks up. She sees me. I freeze: I am not ready to hang with others yet. Mmm-m’am?

She is older than me, much better lived in; less stubborn. I can see she used to be a stunner. Her forehead is un-crinkled, unlike my own: She’s taking it easy.

(Actually, considering the newsworthiness of this week was off the hook, I learned quite a lot, via my Week in Review by Twitter. Every 140-word op-ed came with a new ache of discomfort and my stubborn choice of silence. No commentary, thank you. I’ll take the fifth. Yep: Grace was an antsy lil’ thing last night, so I can’t say I was restful.)

Every time I crave a better piece of writing — or am about to lose all hope for the mankind — I reach for Junot Diaz. Or Zadie Smith. Or Comrade Nabokov. But during the last hours of my seventh day: Esquire it was. I balanced the pages on my naked skin, watching them mark me with black ink. (Written on the Body. Forgot about that one.) Half-way in a out of sleep, I waited for the voices in my head to hush down (fucking Twitter, with its schizophrenia galore!); when out came a term I’ve never heard before: No Fault Divorce.

Say whaaat?! How come I never got me one of those?

For a second, I forgot which publication was marring my skin with its biodegradable colors (because as you may have read or heard, my darlings, it’s been a book on the topic of Zen this entire week). I forced myself back to reality, for moment. Yep: still Esquire. My Bible to Mankind.

“Damn it,” I thought. “No fucking way I’ll be able to go to sleep now!”

Sure enough, the voices in my head went up a hundred decibels, like a choir of Cleopatra’s eunuchs. Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda started bouncing in my frontal lobe, like steel bullets inside a pinball machine. Before being tempted to reach for a shot of NyQuil, I leapt out of bed and went digging for my divorce settlement — a document I make no habit of viewing, ever! — issued by some New York Honorable So-‘n’-So who has never met me, let alone heard my side of the story. Nope: In my case, my darlings, my fucking story was retold by some attorney with a Chinese name, hired by my ex-husband, the plaintiff:

“The defendant has waived HER right to answer or respond.”

(Again: I took the fifth.)

And considering I was on the opposite coast of the country, that’s one way to put it.

There’s no way the Honorable So-’n’-So could’ve known that I was cradling myself to some state of forgiveness, for a duration of a single climate season, since the tragic separation from a friend. ‘Cause that’s exactly what my hubs was to me — a friend, first and foremost. Because I was planning to do this “till death do us part”, not the Honorable So-’n’-So “do us part”; and from my idea of marriage, you better be friends if you want to survive until there is no more sex to keep the two of you together.

But it didn’t work out for us that way. Shit went wrong. Things fell apart. And by mutual at the time admission, we “couldn’t do it anymore”.

Despite suffering from a temporary amnesia toward my former self, I had enough presence of mind to recognize what was best for me, at the moment: to run. The same way I had fled from the broken marriage of my parents a decade ago (fucking irony, eh?), I took myself across several time zones; because the temptation for reunions with the hubs (the friend and plaintiff) — out of fear or stubbornness or love — would’ve been too great to resist.

But before I departed, we agreed that it was due to no particular one’s fault. Instead, it was a hundred of little faults, from both of us. Endless little fights — about my silly habits and his lovable ones; fights that were thrilling in the beginning, because they lead to moments of clarity — and sex; fights that would eventually look comedic; and we would crack each other up, making the hubs’ single dimple appear on his right cheek while I shook my mane at just how I much I adored that fucking thing. But neither of us could remember when those fights flipped. Before we knew it, they became little barnacles of cancer which would then be the eventual end of us. Those fights belonged to a different category: No longer little catharses, they became struggles for power; and that power had nothing to do with forgiveness but everything — with being right.

Last night’s Esquire piece said it best:

“Fighting matters to a marriage because what matters most to a marriage is forgiveness, and forgiveness doesn’t come for free. You have to fight for it.”

Truth be told, my fellow broken-hearted, I didn’t want to be right. Most of the time, I didn’t want to have the last word either, because I didn’t even know what that last word would be. (It’s a foreigner thing, or a writerly thing: I need time to formulate my words — in order to be poignant, or perfectly understood, or “brilliant”.) So: I threw in the towel. Because I feared losing a friend, first and foremost. Because I knew that despite the resilience of one’s forgiveness, there indeed exists a point of no return. (I had seen happen, a decade ago, with my parents. Fucking irony, eh?) Because secretly I knew that time and space — and in my case, several timezones of space — would heal.

I left. Gypsy — out.

By leaving I admitted my fault, my comrades. I chose to find someone to blame (which is how our fights got cancerous, remember?) — so, I blamed myself. It was easier that way. I had to lose enough to learn the one prerequisite to forgiveness — remembering THAT which is worth fighting for, or THAT worth walking away from; yet still, I had to leave enough behind TO forgive. Which is why the settlement to my divorce had to be called Abandonment — another little fault in a sum of all others. My price of forgiveness; and my own asking price — for keeping a friend, first and foremost.